Having
worked in and led many kaizens, and by coaching executives and managers about
the principles of Lean, I have always asked the question: why do we focus only on
the process “flow”, how about workers’ flow?
I once came
across a business book that had more (positive) psychology than numbers!
Fascinated by the title “Good Business,” the book talked about “flow” from the
operator/worker perspective. I thought that is a good source to tap in while
attempting to extend the concept of “flow” in Lean. The book author, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
argues that the quality of experience is a function of the relationship between
skills (x) and challenges (y). Optimal Experience, or “flow”, occurs when both
variables (x, y) are high.
“We have to
grasp not only the Know-How but also ‘Know-Why’” -Shingo
It is
fundamental in Lean to implement process flow, as it is a pre-requisite to have
“pull” if a process is to be optimised. However, that is all true from the
process perspective. In many industries, especially process-intensive ones like
energy, healthcare and retail, the flow of the product and the work of the operator
are on two different planes, as Shingo showed us in his network of processes vs
operations model. Hence, what is needed here is to think of “flow” in Lean down
two dimensions: process flow and operator flow. The former is a very well
documented in Lean literature. I think we need to shed some light on the
latter, let’s call it operator flow.
Operator
experience is optimal when the job at hand present the worker with challenges
that match their skills, as Csikszentmihalyi eloquently demonstrated in his
aforementioned book. This calls for the whole discipline of organisation design
to be employed for this discussion – and rightly so. As part of my experience working
within huge business transformation programmes, I learned first-hand the
importance of sequencing the steps of implementing change: first, design
processes to ensure Lean flow/pull: simple, streamlined, standard processes, then
and only then, design roles to operate the processes. Bundle related roles
together logically and hey presto; you will have job descriptions ready to be
published to hire the right people for the right job. If all goes to plan,
workers will be able to do the right thing, the right way first time and every
time, that was the inspiration.
Csikszentmihalyi
neatly summarized the steps required to achieve flow:
- The task at hand is challenging enough – “just right” neither boring nor frustrating
- Focus: you will need to concentrate without interruptions and/or noise
- Crystal-clear goals: if you aim at nothing you will achieve it all the time
- Immediate feedback provided
- Task at hand is meaningful enough to be front and centre and absorb you into it so that everyday life recedes into the background. In other words: know-why not only know-how.
- Sense of self disappears for a while (loss of ego) and when it comes back, you are refreshed. Sense of inspiration and harmony
- You are in control over your actions – autonomy
While
Maslow professed “self-actualisation” as the ultimate human achievement, Csikszentmihalyi
goes further to say that we need to contribute beyond one’s self as integrated
individuals – every worker is unique in their own right but can achieve much
more when part of a team – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Some ideas have energy of their own, but we need to harness that energy. Most people think Edison and Ford where geniuses who worked alone. Wrong! They were supported by their team and networks and that’s why they were able to turn vision into reality on a continuous basis. They created industries on the back of their innovation. Therefore, in process design, we need to create workplace to be amenable for operator
flow to occur. Letting creativity juice
flow is one way of creating such workplaces. By enticing operators to work better
together and together better, and encouraging them, especially front-line staff, to come up with new
ideas to make their job more efficient and more effective, ie to
process-innovate not just product-innovate, we will have a more conducive
atmosphere for flow to happen in (at least) two dimensions.
Innovation success factors
- Quality of business ideas – rigorous selection
- Education program – unique, tailored
- Delivery – state of the art- excellence
- Mentors – strong network, wide, world-class
- Inspiring role models
This is one
of the risks process standardisation presents to any organisation-redesign
programme. Where do you draw the line between locked-down “gold standard”
processes and the provision of “sandbox” for workers to innovate? Well, one
answer is in the organisation’s vision statement that Csikszentmihalyi wants us
to call it the “soul” of the organisation: “if a vision is genuine and is
carried into action, it becomes a powerful attractor for members of the
organisation. It provides a goal that is worth pursuing over and above the
extrinsic rewards that can be provided by the job.”
I tried discussing
Csikszentmihalyi flow when I worked at one of companies in the Middle East. The
aim was to increase KPIs to new unprecedented levels – stretch goals if you
like. During the session where I was announcing the new targets, I told my team
that we need to have jobs to be challenging enough to match your skills, which,
after working with my team for several months I was convinced they were to ready
to shift gears upwards. And I recall the message worked very well. However,
this was also coupled with launching “team collaboration” and “process
innovation” awards, which got everyone buzzed, and all wanted to achieve more
by working/innovating together.
